Has anyone used goldmoney.com before? It's a way to avoid taxes on silver.

Do not confuse tax avoidance (generally considered a crime) with tax deferral (legal incentive).

If you are a US citizen, you won't pay taxes while the metal is held in custodianship by GoldMoney. That much is true. However, when you repatriate either the metal or the funds, you will be taxed. There is also a reporting requirement to inform the US gov't when holding any asset valued over $10,000 anywhere outside of the nation's jurisdiction. Penalties apply for failure to report.

There are other methods of protecting your assets that do allow for an annual tax-free income of about $90,000 in the US, but the laws are always subject to change at the whim of a politician. Again, the assets and investments cannot be repatriated above the ~$90k limit without incurring tax liabilities.

GoldMoney is only a means of storing assets outside of your own country. The company does what it can to protect its clients, but there are limits to its abilities. Recently, metal holdings have been returned to Dutch GoldMoney clients after being informed that their government now considers GoldMoney to be classified as a financial investment service and subject to ridiculous regulations that would effectively negate the company's beneficial aspects. All GoldMoney does is store physical metal on a client's behalf.

When using any highly visible precious metals custodian service, it is my strong recommendation that you have a private, reputable and secure backup facility ready to accept your metals in the event that your own country targets GoldMoney or similar services such as Gold Bullion International.

Having a private storage facility picked out means your metal can be shipped there and stored just as any other physical item might be stored. This is the equivalent of a safe deposit box at a bank, only not part of the banking system. Think Brinks, but aim smaller - big companies are easy targets.

Hey cypherdoc: why do some governments seem keen on making precious metals hard or too costly to acquire/hold/use?

I'm in the UK so the main tax to avoid is VAT. I surely cannot avoid capital gains if I pass the limit on that but it doesn't apply to a threshold of some sort. Gold is capital gains and VAT free in the UK. I can use an ISA to invest some more money with no tax (inc. capital gains) which would have to be in a ETF. Physical silver will have VAT which is rather unavoidable.

F**k the government. The B**tards.

Gold is the best option for avoiding tax in the UK but then you don't have the benefits of silver exposure.

now that we're up and out of the bear flag we should start trending; you know, that everyday up a little thing with a down day every long once in a while. LOL!

The same applies to gold, only none of the indicators are against the uptrend (volume, RSI, MACD). For the Dow:gold ratio, the RSI is approaching oversoldoverbought. The MACD is already at extremes, and the ratio has retraced to about 50% of the decline. I won't even get into the weeklies other than to say that looks even heavier.

again i'm amazed at how diff ppl look at the same chart and draw completely opposite conclusions. no, the RSI is only half way from the 50 to 70 overbought level and will probably overshoot for quite a bit of time.

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Note the MACD and RSI which are at extreme lows instead of highs. MACD has crossed over to the upside. The dollar is in a much weaker position with RSI in the middle and MACD having made a decisive crossover to the downside.

no, the RSI is only at 43.65 and needs to drop to 30 before you can even begin to think its oversold. do not focus too much on these indicators. look at the price. does that curl down look like its suddenly going to reverse up to you? not me.

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It would also be wise to remember the basics of higher highs and higher lows.

i agree. follow your own advise. silver and pm miners will lead gold down.

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I have one question for you, cypherdoc: do you think the markets are being intervened in by monetary authorities?

no i don't. i think the CB's probably intervened as gold approached $2000 but now have stepped back. the markets are behaving rationally to me. the real game changer was the start of what looks like a long term revulsion of UST debt. makes sense since we were downgraded, Europes sovereign debt problems, and the fact that everyone knows the US is the ultimate debtor.

all that money has to go somewhere. when stocks failed to die after 2 overthrows to the downside out of the bear flag, that was a signal that they'd shoot to the upside. also Europeans fleeing to the US stock mkt helps as well. as long as the $DXY doesn't start shooting to the upside this will go on for several months.

also the 2 asset bubbles left to pop are gold and UST's. all assets are being repriced downwards. i still think we are in deflation. its a little confusing b/c markets are diverging once again via the USD falling and gold/silver stagnating. this gives the UST and gold mkts a chance to come down off their highs. but in aggregate i think assets are dropping in price. at some point early next year we will probably get everything in sync to the downside with the USD skyrocketing.

I'm in the UK so the main tax to avoid is VAT. I surely cannot avoid capital gains if I pass the limit on that but it doesn't apply to a threshold of some sort. Gold is capital gains and VAT free in the UK. I can use an ISA to invest some more money with no tax (inc. capital gains) which would have to be in a ETF. Physical silver will have VAT which is rather unavoidable.

F**k the government. The B**tards.

Gold is the best option for avoiding tax in the UK but then you don't have the benefits of silver exposure.

Ah ok, yes - each country has its own absurdities. Does VAT apply when exchanging between metals (e.g. gold->silver and vice versa)? And how does GM avoid VAT on silver? What about incorporation or a trust formed in an unassociated jurisdiction?

Don't F the gov, it F's you back harder. Just don't play by their rules...

again i'm amazed at how diff ppl look at the same chart and draw completely opposite conclusions. no, the RSI is only half way from the 50 to 70 overbought level and will probably overshoot for quite a bit of time.

no, the RSI is only at 43.65 and needs to drop to 30 before you can even begin to think its oversold. do not focus too much on these indicators. look at the price. does that curl down look like its suddenly going to reverse up to you? not me.

Thanks for catching my mistake, yes overbought. It can definitely rise for some time, but you can't deny that 61.72 is significantly closer to overbought than 43.65 for gold. In addition, RSI for the Dow:Gold ratio has spent the majority of time under the 50 level (and has only been over 70 twice in the past year - for about two weeks in January and one day in July) whereas gold has mostly been over 50. Also, if funds are flowing into equities, it doesn't take much of that flow into gold to keep the ratio steady.

Extreme lows in daily RSI for gold are not the same as extreme lows elsewhere. There have only been three other periods where RSI was below the current level, and they were all short-lived. You're right, though - these indicators are minor next to the price. That looks like it's heavy, but there are an awful lot of long tails on those candlesticks - talk about tension.

Besides, how many times has the gold price looked heavy and sprang back up to new highs? I count at least three times just on that daily chart and those weren't even instances where other factors were as bullish as they are now.

i agree. follow your own advise. silver and pm miners will lead gold down.

Touche. Gold was my focus, but I admit silver is a more volatile animal and the price looks heavy. If we go to weekly or longer charts the uptrend is intact. Gold fell out of channel and is riding along the underside, but it's done that before and broken to the upside; it's set to do so again. The only class that's been defiant is treasuries, but we see the weakness there.

Consider this: if sentiment is such that the global economy is going to pick up, silver will benefit from its industrial use aspect. Equities will rise overall as well as mining operations - gold would have to fall off a cliff for that to change, not so much silver. Since silver will be buoyed by expectations of industrial demand, neither rising nor falling precipitously, silver miners will remain profitable as well.

Mining companies are well into the black as things are now. Many are raising dividends. Few things draw institutional investors like increasing dividend returns do.

Then there's oil. All that has to do is remain above ~$70 to maintain elevated input costs across the board. Production expenses will prevent most goods from falling in price, including precious metals. If precious metals aren't going to fall apart, miners won't crash and a worst case scenario is a range-bound price level.

Or any number of factors could trigger a panic, sending gold and silver to new highs. How about the most relevant: the threat of COMEX default? If that happens, the world's financial glue disintegrates. If standing open interest for the December gold contract isn't reduced well below ~30k, that will happen - started by a run on banks for the wealthy. I think (hope) that can be put off for at least one more year.

And the rest of the world: civil unrest and riots, food shortages, terrorism, Venezuela's gold repatriation, Skynet or... Justin Bieber. At least a few of these are already here and getting worse.

no i don't. i think the CB's probably intervened as gold approached $2000 but now have stepped back. the markets are behaving rationally to me. the real game changer was the start of what looks like a long term revulsion of UST debt. makes sense since we were downgraded, Europes sovereign debt problems, and the fact that everyone knows the US is the ultimate debtor.

all that money has to go somewhere. when stocks failed to die after 2 overthrows to the downside out of the bear flag, that was a signal that they'd shoot to the upside. also Europeans fleeing to the US stock mkt helps as well. as long as the $DXY doesn't start shooting to the upside this will go on for several months.

also the 2 asset bubbles left to pop are gold and UST's. all assets are being repriced downwards. i still think we are in deflation. its a little confusing b/c markets are diverging once again via the stock and commodity rise which will probably be limited to a few months. this gives the UST and gold mkts a chance to come down off their highs. but in aggregate i think assets are dropping in price. at some point early next year we will probably get everything in sync to the downside with the USD skyrocketing.

thats how i see it at least for now.

Nice. I don't agree on gold being a bubble yet, but I respect that assessment.

Thanks for catching my mistake, yes overbought. It can definitely rise for some time, but you can't deny that 61.72 is significantly closer to overbought than 43.65 for gold. In addition, RSI for the Dow:Gold ratio has spent the majority of time under the 50 level (and has only been over 70 twice in the past year - for about two weeks in January and one day in July) whereas gold has mostly been over 50. Also, if funds are flowing into equities, it doesn't take much of that flow into gold to keep the ratio steady.

yes but my opinion is that we are looking at primary trend changes in most of these markets, not linear extrapolations of the same. so these moves toward overbought for RSI DowGold can continue and persist in overbought for quite a while and the reverse for RSIGold.

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Extreme lows in daily RSI for gold are not the same as extreme lows elsewhere. There have only been three other periods where RSI was below the current level, and they were all short-lived. You're right, though - these indicators are minor next to the price. That looks like it's heavy, but there are an awful lot of long tails on those candlesticks - talk about tension.

thanks for acknowledging that. its healthier for your bank acct. and you're right, those wicks have not gone unnoticed and truly do represent tension. i would know, having jumped in and out of my short positions.

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Besides, how many times has the gold price looked heavy and sprang back up to new highs? I count at least three times just on that daily chart and those weren't even instances where other factors were as bullish as they are now.

lets be clear. i am NOT short gold or the miners just now altho i'm considering it if gold continues its rollover. in fact, i have a nice long green position in FCX that i've been riding up since the bottom. you're absolutely right; my whole theory of markets moving inversely to the USD may reassert itself with bullion and the miners if the USD keeps dropping too low. inflation might reignite. i just don't think it does so with ZIRP (i view that as deflationary as opposed to most who view it as inflationary) and the deleveraging that is being forced upon everyone right now. the USD flowing out of UST's could start diverting toward pm's as well. i just don't think it does b/c sentiment is such that investors look at pm's as at the end of an 11 yr bubble more than as an oversold asset class with upside potential.

i agree. follow your own advise. silver and pm miners will lead gold down.

Touche. Gold was my focus, but I admit silver is a more volatile animal and the price looks heavy. If we go to weekly or longer charts the uptrend is intact. Gold fell out of channel and is riding along the underside, but it's done that before and broken to the upside; it's set to do so again. The only class that's been defiant is treasuries, but we see the weakness there.

Consider this: if sentiment is such that the global economy is going to pick up, silver will benefit from its industrial use aspect. Equities will rise overall as well as mining operations - gold would have to fall off a cliff for that to change, not so much silver. Since silver will be buoyed by expectations of industrial demand, neither rising nor falling precipitously, silver miners will remain profitable as well.

there's 2 ways to look at this; either everything is going to go back to being hunky dory with controlled inflation picking back up w/o us miraculously not going into a hyperinflation then you'd be right OR that this stock rally is just a relief rally before the SHTF. unfortunately i lean toward the latter. the distortions are just too great, the debt just too big, the corruption just too deep, the anger just too rooted, the wages just too low, the employment just too high and the wage disparity just too high. the rise in interest rates as UST's continue their selloff should not be viewed as a bullish sign as most will interpret. eventually it will crush all growth and the US gov't will be forced to dole out austerity. i'm in a profession that has been seeing this happening for quite a while already which has really focused my mind as to where my income has been diverted. answer: financials. and i am in what you'd consider to be the 1% and yet i'm pissed as hell.

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Mining companies are well into the black as things are now. Many are raising dividends. Few things draw institutional investors like increasing dividend returns do.

Then there's oil. All that has to do is remain above ~$70 to maintain elevated input costs across the board. Production expenses will prevent most goods from falling in price, including precious metals. If precious metals aren't going to fall apart, miners won't crash and a worst case scenario is a range-bound price level.

again, this position requires that the PTB can thread the needle. my theory of markets is that we go thru boom busts, high volatility cycles. we're still at the upper end of the pendulum swing from the reflation off the 3/09 lows. the swing back will undermine the above.

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Or any number of factors could trigger a panic, sending gold and silver to new highs. How about the most relevant: the threat of COMEX default? If that happens, the world's financial glue disintegrates. If standing open interest for the December gold contract isn't reduced well below ~30k, that will happen - started by a run on banks for the wealthy. I think (hope) that can be put off for at least one more year.

And the rest of the world: civil unrest and riots, food shortages, terrorism, Venezuela's gold repatriation, Skynet or... Justin Bieber. At least a few of these are already here and getting worse.

now this would be the Armageddon scenario which i don't think they can let happen. this is when they start intervening again with gold/silver.

no i don't. i think the CB's probably intervened as gold approached $2000 but now have stepped back. the markets are behaving rationally to me. the real game changer was the start of what looks like a long term revulsion of UST debt. makes sense since we were downgraded, Europes sovereign debt problems, and the fact that everyone knows the US is the ultimate debtor.

all that money has to go somewhere. when stocks failed to die after 2 overthrows to the downside out of the bear flag, that was a signal that they'd shoot to the upside. also Europeans fleeing to the US stock mkt helps as well. as long as the $DXY doesn't start shooting to the upside this will go on for several months.

also the 2 asset bubbles left to pop are gold and UST's. all assets are being repriced downwards. i still think we are in deflation. its a little confusing b/c markets are diverging once again via the stock and commodity rise which will probably be limited to a few months. this gives the UST and gold mkts a chance to come down off their highs. but in aggregate i think assets are dropping in price. at some point early next year we will probably get everything in sync to the downside with the USD skyrocketing.

thats how i see it at least for now.

Nice. I don't agree on gold being a bubble yet, but I respect that assessment.

Hypothetically, would your analysis change if the USD were to break below 73?

i've been thinking about this myself. if it breaks below 73 you'd have to assume your HI scenario is near. but it will depend what the chart looks like when it does so. i'm always looking for false breakdowns and breakouts as you may have noticed with gold, UST's, and the miners. quite a lesson, huh?

yes but my opinion is that we are looking at primary trend changes in most of these markets, not linear extrapolations of the same. so these moves toward overbought for RSI DowGold can continue and persist in overbought for quite a while and the reverse for RSIGold.

A distinct possibility; I think that's going to be a 2012 situation, after this year's continued turmoil has bled off.

lets be clear. i am NOT short gold or the miners just now altho i'm considering it if gold continues its rollover. in fact, i have a nice long green position in FCX that i've been riding up since the bottom. you're absolutely right; my whole theory of markets moving inversely to the USD may reassert itself with bullion and the miners if the USD keeps dropping too low. inflation might reignite. i just don't think it does so with ZIRP (i view that as deflationary as opposed to most who view it as inflationary) and the deleveraging that is being forced upon everyone right now. the USD flowing out of UST's could start diverting toward pm's as well. i just don't think it does b/c sentiment is such that investors look at pm's as at the end of an 11 yr bubble more than as an oversold asset class with upside potential.

The only point I question is investor influence in gold at this point. Entities that need real assets the most are major banks with excessive derivative exposure. Gold is the most effective of any asset, with a market that's always available and relatively liquid. Any central bank could start buying up gold (including contracts for future production) at current prices and before the general investment community realizes, none would be left.

Banks could be recapitalized, asset prices stabilized and the world's markets rescued. That would require a monstrous revaluation of gold, though - much more than a doubling from here and too disruptive for the global economy to survive without a lot of breakage. So typical investor sentiment is really supportive of financial institutions' efforts at self-preservation, including the Fed.

there's 2 ways to look at this; either everything is going to go back to being hunky dory with controlled inflation picking back up w/o us miraculously not going into a hyperinflation then you'd be right OR that this stock rally is just a relief rally before the SHTF. unfortunately i lean toward the latter. the distortions are just too great, the debt just too big, the corruption just too deep, the anger just too rooted, the wages just too low, the [un]employment just too high and the wage disparity just too high. the rise in interest rates as UST's continue their selloff should not be viewed as a bullish sign as most will interpret. eventually it will crush all growth and the US gov't will be forced to dole out austerity. i'm in a profession that has been seeing this happening for quite a while already which has really focused my mind as to where my income has been diverted. answer: financials. and i am in what you'd consider to be the 1% and yet i'm pissed as hell.

Since we agree on the end result of a deflationary crunch, it comes back again to the path taken. All of the listed factors are overwhelming, and you pointed out that most will interpret rising interest rates as bullish. That will amount to whistling past the graveyard and allow the illusion to persist. With an economy of such magnitude, that can last for many months, even years.

Yes, the private sector has been the recipient of all the crap while the banking and gov't sectors shuck off the dregs as they struggle to survive while still maintaining control. I'm assuming you're not in or associated directly with government. Private industry is subject to the rules imposed upon it by whatever jurisdiction it's under; government makes and enforces the rules (in collusion with banks). In a bad situation, government will be able to put on a show for much longer than the private sector.

But again, it's an illusion - just one that could last for a long time to come. The point is that gov't may pay lip service to austerity, but in reality will exempt itself from such measures while the private sector continues to be pummeled. There's the resumption of civil unrest.

again, this position requires that the PTB can thread the needle. my theory of markets is that we go thru boom busts, high volatility cycles. we're still at the upper end of the pendulum swing from the reflation off the 3/09 lows. the swing back will undermine the above.

I actually think the big powers that are playing the game can keep it going for some time to come; maybe another year or so. It'll require more drastic action at each stage, coming closer to complete failure each time. A lot of people will never fully grasp what's going on, which is part of what the banks & gov't rely on to maintain the illusion.

i've been thinking about this myself. if it breaks below 73 you'd have to assume your HI scenario is near. but it will depend what the chart looks like when it does so. i'm always looking for false breakdowns and breakouts as you may have noticed with gold, UST's, and the miners. quite a lesson, huh?

Agreed. Even then, it would only be perceived as a discrete acceleration - the "new normal" mentality. After a period marked by adjustment to the new normal, another crisis can hit and trigger further acceleration. Each individual inflexion point won't be significant enough to point at and claim "this is where hyperinflation starts".

It's a rough deal, that's for sure - I fully expect more false breakdowns/breakouts as we proceed, along with more exaggerated smoke & mirrors and insane legislation.

i've been warning about this for a while now. pm's and the miners are getting smashed.

AEM down 18.27%. Wow.

Agnico-Eagle closed one of their mines due to a safety issue, not something occurring in the market overall. The ~20% knee-jerk reaction is to be expected, especially considering sentiment. Personally, I think if management decided to close the mine, it means that the potential for loss of equipment/personnel/profit and subsequent bad press sufficiently outweighed whatever downtime may be necessary to assess what was compromised and in need of corrective action. A prudent business call.

On the flipside, AEM being down such a hefty amount is a mind-boggling buying opportunity, though I'd wait to see if it can dip lower on further news about the mine inspection. The company has numerous other production assets, even with the temporary shutdown of a major mine. Taking into account the fact that global production is around 125mm troy ounces per year and AEM production is nearly 1% of that, there will be further shortage of physical metal. When a crop of oranges is hit by frost damage, the price of orange juice rises. Basic supply & demand: decreased supply with increasing (or at least steady) demand leads to rising prices.

Where will the gold be sourced from to supply the COMEX when there are already procurement issues and a declining store of deliverable metal at all exchanges? This event will have short-term impact. The question is: how long will it take for most investors to take stock of the situation and realize that their panic is unwarranted? Probably too late to take advantage of it.

do you have any idea how hard it was to hold my long leveraged positions during the 251 -ish plunge 2d ago followed by another plunge early yesterday?

its called discipline and conviction to your principles and analysis. i left not only a margin call open yesterday at the close but also an exchange call. by all rights Fidelity could have liquidated me out of part of my triple lever longs etf's and TBT to fill those but they let me slide for some reason. i didn't ask.

do you have any idea how hard it was to hold my long leveraged positions during the 251 -ish plunge 2d ago followed by another plunge early yesterday?

its called discipline and conviction to your principles and analysis. i left not only a margin call open yesterday at the close but also an exchange call. by all rights Fidelity could have liquidated me out of part of my triple lever longs etf's and TBT to fill those but they let me slide for some reason. i didn't ask.

today i am rewarded with all sorts of green.

Glad the trade turned positive for you. Still, it's unnecessarily dangerous to use leverage for trading now, and rather foolish to leave a margin call be for any length of time. If this is just play money, great - keep going for long enough and you will get burned again.

do you have any idea how hard it was to hold my long leveraged positions during the 251 -ish plunge 2d ago followed by another plunge early yesterday?

its called discipline and conviction to your principles and analysis. i left not only a margin call open yesterday at the close but also an exchange call. by all rights Fidelity could have liquidated me out of part of my triple lever longs etf's and TBT to fill those but they let me slide for some reason. i didn't ask.

today i am rewarded with all sorts of green.

Glad the trade turned positive for you. Still, it's unnecessarily dangerous to use leverage for trading now, and rather foolish to leave a margin call be for any length of time. If this is just play money, great - keep going for long enough and you will get burned again.

and yes i've been piling on as the momentum has accelerated off of a failed double attempt to send us into a wave 3 down. penetration of the upper end of the bear flag usually involves a huge spike up and thru as the short seller stops are triggered off the top. this is what i was playing for and was rewarded but not after the market tried to make me dump my longs with a fake breakdown a couple of days prior.

and yes i've been piling on as the momentum has accelerated off of a failed double attempt to send us into a wave 3 down. penetration of the upper end of the bear flag usually involves a huge spike up and thru as the short seller stops are triggered off the top. this is what i was playing for and was rewarded but not after the market tried to make me dump my longs with a fake breakdown a couple of days prior.

Yes, it does and you did. That doesn't mean investing should be done recklessly, though.

The Euro situation is at a breaking point. What happens if bank failures start as they did in 2008? At first, deflation would overwhelm and markets fall. So many are expecting QE now that the Fed has been talking it up; a round of deflation would completely blindside them. After that... everything is set up for further monetary inflation.

Does that guarantee those mechanisms will be acted upon? No; it does provide a path of least resistance so the likelihood of it occurring is very high. Putting all of the systems in place and then not using them to save the system (even if temporarily) seems counter-productive.

I hope the banks fail all around the system but it's not going to happen under the watch of the government protectors. The governments and central banks will protect the bansters at any cost to the innocent civilians. I have far too much money in my bank account right now, I think I should buy some gold.